There’s something peculiar about doing something for the first time. Not peculiar in the way a child might marvel at the taste of their first snowflake, but peculiar in the way the human mind struggles to map the unfamiliar. It goes by many names: stage fright, “the yips”, performance anxiety, or freeze response. It may feel uncurable, but unlocking your potential is easier than you think using simple, free strategies like visualization and anchoring exercises.
“Baseball is 90% mental. The other half is physical.” – Yogi Berra
Before my first marathon, I had trained for months. My body was ready. But my mind, the narrator of every worst-case scenario, had other plans. That’s the thing about firsts: even if you’ve prepared, even if every rational box is checked, your brain resists. It doesn’t trust blueprints it hasn’t tested.
Which brings us to visualization.
The Psychology of What Hasn’t Happened Yet
Visualization, a form of guided imagery, is a mental rehearsal. It’s what athletes do when they close their eyes and imagine the exact moment they step up to the plate. It’s what performers do when they picture the crowd going quiet just before they speak.
But what makes it powerful, therapeutically and psychologically, is that it tricks the brain into believing it’s been there before. Your brain is easily influenced by vivid detail. It doesn’t distinguish much between lived and imagined experience, provided both are richly encoded. This is a key feature in therapies like EMDR that utilize imaginal experiences and resources.
Now add anchoring to the mix, a sensory cue that tethers your imagined success to the real, physical world. A touchpoint. A phrase. A breath.
And suddenly, you’re not just fantasizing, you’re training. It’s so powerful that researchers at the SWPS University of Social Sciences and Humanities discovered just a single session of guided imagery could significantly increase cognitive functioning and attention by filtering out the noise of anxiety. This increase in attention and executive function led to measurable improvements in academic and job performance as well as professional success.
Anchoring Exercise- a Shortcut to Calm
Let’s say you’re nervous before a presentation. You’ve visualized it going well: your voice steady, your words landing. During the visualization, you quietly press your thumb and middle finger together. That physical motion becomes an anchor for performance anxiety.
Now, on the day of the event, you press those fingers together again, and your brain says, “Oh, we’ve done this before. We were fine.”
It’s not magic. It’s memory.
In Therapy, We Apply This to the Everyday
Visualization isn’t limited to peak performance or goal-setting. In therapy, we also use imaginal exposures, a technique where clients mentally rehearse feared social situations in a controlled, supportive environment. Over time, this repeated exposure can reduce anxiety, allowing clients with social anxiety to step into real-life situations with less dread and more confidence.
In EMDR, we use a related tool called imaginal resourcing. Here, clients build calming mental images—safe places, supportive figures, grounding sensations—that can be used to regulate emotional arousal when traumatic memories come up. These techniques train the brain and body to stay present, even in the face of distressing material.
At Potomac Behavioral Health, we help clients take these concepts beyond the starting line. You don’t have to be an athlete to benefit from:
- Rehearsing difficult conversations
- Anchoring calm before stepping into unfamiliar territory
- Building muscle memory for emotional steadiness
The mind’s instinct is to fear the first time. But visualization and anchoring help convince it that this isn’t the first time at all.
And that’s the trick.